Thursday, March 27, 2008

As if I needed another temptation....

For me, part of the fun of going out to dinner is the pre-dinner libation, aka "the pre-func", "getting your groove on", or "setting the table". When w and I have our date nights we almost always make one stop for a refreshing adult beverage before our final destination. The place that has become our de facto starting point lately here in PDX is the Teardrop Lounge in northwest. They've come on fast and hard and are among the cutting edge cocktailistas in town, with a menu of creative and deliciously intoxicating beverages that only seriously indulgent minds would come up with. The owner/bartenders are awesome, and Teardrop was recently named Bar of the Year by Portland Monthly Magazine. They almost always nail it with their drinks (although I have to admit that w's "A Bittersweet Life" was a rare miss). It's a warmly inviting, modern/retro boîte (modern in its sleek design; retro in its comfortable to hang at bar and barmen who take their work seriously and appreciate the history of their craft) that we really dig, a place that doesn't reek of the annoying, trying-too-hard vibe usually given off by other places in the "Pearl" district. Before dinner out at Alba last Saturday, I also happened to have one of the best new drinks to wreak havoc on my liver in quite some time (the last really cool, new drink that grabbed me was the Old Pal at Castagna Café), the intriguingly named "Vow of Silence" (right), a perfectly balanced blend of gin, yellow chartreuse, grapefruit, lemon, averna amaro, and gomme syrup. I'm still not sure what those last two ingredients are, but they all come together to form one wildly good drink that will leave your personal vows of silence, sobriety, or whatever else you're swearing off this week in tatters on the floor around your bar stool!